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Housewife:A married woman who stays home. This is a lifelong vocation. It is an old-fashioned term, and something to be proud of.Not a "domestic engineer." Not a "home manager."An old fashioned housewife, who keeps the home,and abides there.- Mrs. White

Thursday, April 7, 2011

There are certain things we have to do each day, no matter how we feel about it. We have to cook and clean and make sure there is food in the pantry. Sometimes we are so exhausted that we complain or even indulge in crying. This is not the way the old-time homemakers lived.

Many Immigrant mothers came to America with strong backbones. They were used to hard work and ran their homes with dignity and courage. They were not fazed by trials. They knew to pray to God for help, and then got right to work. These homemakers did not give in to their emotions like many of us do today. (I only wish I were as strong as they were!)

My grandmother was in a wheelchair for most of her adult life, but she ran her home with great strength of character and an unbending value system. Her morals were strong and she passed those on to her children.

If the task of homemaking is going to survive, we need hard working mothers who do their job each day despite the trouble and trials that constantly attack us.

Sometimes, the trials are from our own children. Often teenagers and young adults don't want to walk the old paths. This can make us almost want to give up and die...... But we must keep going. We must smile as often as we can and live the godly life and find our joy and strength from the Lord. No matter what anyone around us is doing, we must continue with our work.

For the past couple of days, I have been in a lot of pain and unable to do much. This morning, I am much better and ready to face the family and my chores with new zeal. Today, I will work for a couple of hours and I will plan nice meals. Then I will read my Bible and rest.

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comments:

I'm thankful to hear you're feeling better!Yes, our ancestors did not expect the ease we desire today. I can remember reading that a young wife during the Depression years desired to have enough food for her family to eat each day. As our society became wealthier and the middle class expanded, we began to desire happiness most of all. Have a blessed weekend, dear............Denise

Great post. I agree. As mothers we definitely have to have strength. I'm sure at times our fore-mothers would take one look at us and be forced to laugh at how slothful we have become. (myself especially) I am so thankful we have them to look to for our example.

My mother came from europe when she was 9 and was sent out to work when she was 11. She hated leaving school. She got married at 17 and nursed her invalid father in law for the first 9 years of her marriage and also had 2 babies in 15 months. No electricity or running water. She was such a hard worker...I asked her before she died how she kept going. she said, 'you just do what you have to do.' she also said that the work was so hard when us kids were growing up and she was so exhausted, but looking back over her life, those were the happiest years of her life...working alongside daddy and raising us kids.

Try not to be discouraged about our young adults. They will come back to their roots and God will continue to call them...especially when they have young ones of their own.

I grew up in a home where mom was always in some kind of pain or other. Never painful enough to do what she wanted to do but so much that I was able to learn to keep a home and raise children from a young age. Here we are 25 years later and she is still a hypochondriac and I am living a wonderful life having mastered the skills put before me.

I often think of the women of the old ways and how proud they would be of me having learned to use the new ways to my advantage in order to contribute to society in ways that they were not able. Most don't understand that statement and take offense, especially the working women that consider contributing to the national debt or the government employees paychecks as contribution to society but it goes way beyond that.

I have no problem with my children not "living the old ways" as all I can do is pave the path but it is theirs to follow. I'd much prefer that my girls load the dishwasher and read to their own babies than wash dishes by hand, complain of the workload, a backache and lack of time.

I see many women in general making complaint after complaint after complaint of tiredness, being worn-out, blah, blah, blah just making excuses for skipping out on their duties or someone else's needs besides "their own". The more you do, the more you can do and the women of old ways seemed to grasp this in ways we can't imagine. They wouldn't have been caught dead having "me time" in the morning, at noon and again before bed. They wouldn't have been caught dead letting the house go a day or two because they just weren't feeling well. And I don't think they would have been caught dead glamorizing their job because they were far to busy doing their job.

Anon's mom had it! You just do what you have to do and some of us see that as a blessing and do it with a smile and a thank you for the opportunity while some of us can't muster the strength to do anything but find ways to get out of it or pass it off to someone else to do.